Sunday 24 October 2004

Growing up

I had to delete the first spam comments from [TTM](http://www.nirya.be)'s database earlier today. I normally do not endorse censorship, which is what this amounts to, but in the case of spam comments I make an exception. Spam commenting is when someone makes an otherwise meaningless comment with a link to their home page, or the page they want to promote, in the hope that when a [googlebot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlebot) next comes along, it picks up the link and ups the pagerank of the page in question.

The fact that TTM now attracts comments spammers tells me two things:

* There are very desperate people out there. Surely there are better blogs to target than that of a bunch of Belgium based toy soldier people.

* TTM is being read outside of our own inner circle, apparently.

We're growing up...

__UPDATE__ 25/10/2004 - the number of comment spams (not counting Rudi's below :) ) has risen quite steeply, so I've installed [MTBlacklist](http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/), which has already netted several spams since installing it yesterday evening. If you ever make a comment that is rejected (you should get a message to this effect) and you think the rejection is unjustified, [contact me](mailto:ttm@nirya.be) and I'll see what we can do to get your comment in.

2 comments:

  1. ****SPAM****SPAM****SPAM****
    Worried about too much money in your pocket or bank account? Afraid of being robbed? We have a whole range of perfect investments lined up for you
    http://users.skynet.be/tinsoldiers/html/traders04.htm
    Thank you for looking,
    Spammie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice try Rudi :)
    However, this comment has three salient features disqualifying it as _true_ comment spam:
    * It clearly defines itself as spam
    * It is on a recent entry
    * You left your real name
    So, sorry, I won't be able to delete you as comment spam :)
    BTW, the link in question is to the [traders page](http://users.skynet.be/tinsoldiers/html/traders04.htm) for Crisis 2004, coming up in just two weeks now. Everyone go there!

    ReplyDelete